


it wasn't easy, but nothing is

by MeansToOffend (goodmorning)



Series: Pick Me Up (Again) [7]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: (again with the angst), 2018-2019 NHL Season, Angst, Ottawa Senators, sorry for bringing up clarke macarthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-23 01:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17674037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorning/pseuds/MeansToOffend
Summary: "Matt gives up on his childhood team in the midst of what some people will eventually call “one of the worst seasons from any team in the history of the game” and others will call “a complete disgrace,” or even “hot fucking garbage.”"





	it wasn't easy, but nothing is

[i’m pins and i’m needles]

One goal away from the final and they offer him a deal that’ll last him through age 39.

Craig takes it. He’s not as young as he was, he wants stability; he doesn’t think he’d get any better offers in free agency next season, and a little guaranteed money in case he suddenly gets worse would be nice; and he loves Ottawa as much as anyone can, loves how fiercely the fans care for him and Nicholle and the franchise itself, and he’s excited to spend the rest of his career here.

Then they trade Karly and life gets just a little bit harder. He’s seeing more shots every single game, harder shots to save, and it’s whittling him away. But this is what he signed up for, and he’s not going to let the fans down.

He squares his shoulders and turns his back to the crossbar.

[woohoo]

They call him slow, useless, a pylon, and that’s just the nice ones. The shit that some people say is worse.

Cody does all he can do - play his heart out and hope they’re all wrong.

(The doubts only get to him at night, alone in the dark with other (better) defencemen on television and nobody there to reassure him.)

[when i was young]

Brady laughs a little at the draft, feeling sorry for the poor bastard that the Sens are going to take with their pick this year. Not only is the team gonna suck, it also means their pick for the next year will be high and not-theirs, and he can only imagine the amounts of blame the fans are going to heap squarely on the shoulders of pretty much the only guy whose fault it won’t be.

And then it’s him.

Well, fuck.

He’s going to have to be pretty, pretty good to avoid that fate, he thinks. Luckily for him, though, he is. Brady pulls his draft hat on and smiles.

[pleased to meet you]

Matt gives up on his childhood team in the midst of what some people will eventually call “one of the worst seasons from any team in the history of the game” and others will call “a complete disgrace,” or even “hot fucking garbage.” So maybe he’s still a little bit of a bandwagoner, but sue him, he wants to be part of a playoff team for once.

Ten months later, he’s playing for a team that was a goal away from a Cup Final five months before, and eleven months after that some people are saying things about it like “one of the worst regressions from any team in the history of the game” and others are calling the owner “a complete disgrace,” and the whole situation “like a tire truck crashed into a landfill and the whole thing went up in flames.”

He still can’t say he’d like to go back to the days when he thought he knew what the word “worst” meant.

[oh, yeah]

Thomas loves his family and he loves video games. He also loves deking guys’ skates off.

It’s unfortunate that he doesn’t get to do it often, but that happens when you choose to be a defenceman. Maybe it even makes it more exciting, that he doesn’t get the chance every night.

He likes Ottawa, though. There are enough Quebecois in the area to feel a little bit like home, and he’s not under any real pressure to be anything other than himself on the ice. Even when he makes mistakes, the fans understand, and with the way the team looks on paper, people are relieved and happy when they win rather than being angry when they lose.

Thomas scores a goal and grins and grins.

[i got my head checked]

Clarke picks a nine iron off the rack and tests the swing.

He refuses to yearn for the dry, cold air of a rink, the sound and feel of skates cutting into ice below his feet.

He puts it back and tries another.

[well, i lie and i’m easy]

He never feels guilty about leaving the Avs. The situation wasn’t right for him anymore, and everyone was happy to see him go: the fans and the front office for the return he brought, his former teammates because they felt betrayed and hurt.

That was no excuse for them to hurt him, though.

In Ottawa, Matt may not change in the bathroom down the hall, but he can’t say he tries very hard to make friends, either. He just puts on a smiling face and goes where everyone tells him to go.

Video games don’t require a deep connection to play together. It’s easy to keep everyone at arm’s length when they’re only close on a screen.

[i’m never sure why i need you]

Mark is going to drag this goddamned team into something resembling respectability if it kills him. Part of this is because it’s embarrassing and depressing to play for a team that’s shit, demoralising to lose over and over again. Mostly, though, he’s afraid of what the fans will do if the pick that got traded to Colorado is high or - god forbid - a lottery-winner. He’s never been injured by something a fan has thrown and he really doesn’t want to start now.

He has a home here. He’s established a life. He’s fucking well not going to give it up easily.

He takes a deep breath and tries not to let it out as a sigh.

[when i feel heavy metal]

They say he’ll be out for four to six months but Jean-Gabriel isn’t about to sit back and be sidelined for so long.

He works and works and makes it back in three-point-five.

He’ll help enough. He has to.

[it’s not my problem]

Matt is a free agent this season. For some reason, he doesn’t think he’ll need to consider very hard whether he wants to go back to Ottawa.

It won’t be his problem anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Title and subsection titles from Blur, "Song 2" which was and I'm pretty sure still is the Senators' goal song.  
> \- I'm also pretty sure the only one that's going to be harder to write than this will be Detroit, which is unfortunately next.  
> \- Trades will render this completely useless by the deadline, I'm sure.


End file.
